Kacy Clemens drove in four of Vancouver’s six runs in Salem-Keizer Friday.
The Vancouver Canadians could not build on the momentum of Thursday’s series opening victory as they suffered a 12-6 loss Friday night at Volcanoes Stadium. The latest setback was the 10th in their last 13 contests. They got help from the Eugene Emeralds as they defeated the Tri-City Dust Devils at home. That means the C’s maintain their one-game lead in the North Division and their magic number is down to one. A C’s win or a Dust Devils loss would give Vancouver the first-half division title. The C’s have the tie-breaker due to their head-to-head record in the division.
Reggie Pruitt had three hits and two stolen bases against Salem-Keizer.
The C’s broke out on top with a run in the first when Reggie Pruitt singled, stole second and scored on a two-out base hit by Kacy Clemens off Salem-Keizer starter Alejandro De La Rosa. That lead would not last long.
Malique Ziegler smacked a leadoff triple against Juan Nunez and would score on a two-run double by Ryan Kirby that also brought in a Bryce Johnson walk. Orlando Garcia scored Kirby with a sacrifice fly to make it 3-1 Volcanoes after one.
Nunez limited the home team to a leadoff single by Michael Sexton in the second and the C’s got two runners aboard in the third on one-out singles by Pruitt and Kevin Vicuna. Those two would steal a base to put two runners in scoring position with two outs but Clemens grounded out to leave them stranded.
Aa throwing error by Logan Warmoth at short led to another three-run outburst against Nunez in the third. After Logan Baldwin reached on the error, Johnson and Kirby singled with Kirby’s knock scoring Baldwin. Kirby then stole second and two wild pitches would score Johnson and Kirby.
Nunez put up a perfect frame in the fourth but a leadoff walk to Johnson, a run-scoring double by Kirby and a single by Garcia combined with a Pruitt error allowed Kirby to score. Grayson Huffman relieved Nunez but he gave up a run-scoring double by Robinson Medrano, a sac fly by Chris Corbett, a wild pitch and a bunt single by Baldwin capped off a six-pack of runs for Salem-Keizer.
After eight strikeouts against De La Rosa over five innings in which he retired the last seven men he faced, Vancouver had better success against Andy Rohloff in the sixth. A Vicuna walk and a Warmoth got things started and Clemens brought them all home with a three-run home run to cut the Volcanoes lead to 12-4.
Brayden Bouchey pitched two shutout innings of relief Friday.
Brayden Bouchey looked after things with two scoreless frames, walking just one batter in the sixth. After nothing doing in the seventh, Vicuna and Warmoth kickstarted another rally in the eighth with base hits off and Riley Adams drove in Vicuna with a one-out base rap off Jason Bahr. A two-out walk by Norberto Obeso loaded the bases but Brandon Polizzi grounded out into a fielder’s choice.
Chris Hall worked around a hit batter in the eighth to give Vancouver one more chance with the bats. They added one more run on a one-out single by Pruitt and a run-scoring triple by Warmoth.
Logan Warmoth punched out three hits to lift his batting average to .407.
Pruitt and Warmoth ended their evenings with three-hit efforts with Pruitt stealing twice to run his season total to 17. Vicuna and Clemens had two knocks and a stolen base apiece but the bottom four in the order—Bryan Lizardo, Obeso, Polizzi and Matt Morgan—were a combined 0-for-15 with a walk (by Obeso) and nine strikeouts. Vancouver was 4-for-13 with runners in scoring position, left seven men on base and struck out 15 times.
Nunez was charged with nine runs and all but one of them were earned over four-plus innings as his record goes to 2-3. He walked three and struck out just one. Huffman allowed an inherited run to score and was charged with the other three runs on two hits and two walks. Bouchey struck out two and walked one over two hitless frames and only a hit by pitch spoiled Hall’s eighth.
C-Notes
Andrew Guillotte (2015) and Dwight Smith Jr. (2012) had three hits; Jon Berti (2011), Rowdy Tellez (2014) and Roemon Fields (2014) had two hits apiece and Jason Leblebijian (2012-2013) clubbed a home run as Buffalo ran over Louisville. Taylor Cole (2012) and Matt Dermody (2013) tossed a scoreless inning each.
Sean Reid-Foley (2014) struck out 12 and gave up just one run over 6-2/3 innings and Carlos Ramirez (2012) added another scoreless frame to keep his ERA at 0.00 as New Hampshire dumped Trenton. Ryan McBroom (2014) belted a home run .
Conor Fisk (2015) was outstanding for Dunedin with eight shutout innings of one-hit ball, striking out six with a Game Score of 92 to help the Jays defeat Lakeland. J.C. Cardenas (2015) had a sacrifice fly to score a Cavan Biggio single (2016) for the game’s only run.
Mitch Nay (2013) had two hits, Rodrigo Orozco had two walks and Nash Knight walked three times but Lansing was pounded by Quad Cities.
Dalton Rodriguez gets the call for Vancouver in the middle game of this five-game series. First pitch is at 6:35 pm on CanadiansBaseball.com.
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